Agencies get better GPRA ratings for new plans

Federal agencies are getting better at setting goals and measures for their operations, according to General Accounting Office ratings of major agencies' performance plans for their programs next year. But agencies are still struggling at explaining how they will reach their goals and verify their results, GAO found.

In a report released this week by three key Capitol Hill Republicans, GAO gave good marks to the Transportation Department, Labor Department, General Services Administration and Social Security Administration for developing performance plans that explain what the agency hopes to accomplish in fiscal 2000. The other 20 major agencies earned mediocre ratings from GAO.

"Agencies' fiscal year 2000 performance plans show moderate improvements over the fiscal year 1999 plans and contain better information and perspective," GAO said in "Managing for Results: Opportunities for Continued Improvements in Agencies' Performance Plans" (GGD/AIMD-99-215). "However, key weaknesses remain, and important opportunities exist to improve future plans."

Federal agencies are required under the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act to develop annual performance plans explaining what they will accomplish. The first plans were developed for fiscal 1999, which is winding up next month. The second plans, which the new GAO study rated, are for fiscal 2000. In March 2000, agencies will release their first performance reports, which will say whether they met their goals for fiscal 1999.

GAO rated the plans on three elements:

• whether plans presented clear pictures of intended performance
• whether the plans discussed specific strategies and resource requirements
• whether the plans provided confidence that performance information will be credible

Overall, GAO found that agencies developed quantifiable measures and established baseline data to which results will be compared. But the plans generally failed to discuss how they will solve long-standing management problems at agencies, how agencies will coordinate efforts, how resources will be applied to reach goals, or how performance data will be validated and verified.

GAO also cautioned that simply having good performance plans won't make agencies operate better.

"Performance improvements occur when agencies transform their organizational cultures so that achieving results becomes the driving concern of daily operations and when agency managers and external decisionmakers use results-oriented plans and the planning and management processes that underpin them to inform decisions," GAO said.

The report was released by Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., all of whom have taken an abiding interest in the Results Act. While Thompson applauded the improvements in the plan and Armey said he was pleased with the progress, Burton had choice words for federal managers about their failure to use the Results Act to reduce mismanagement.

"The taxpayers of this country should be very angry that bureaucrats are wasting huge amounts of their money by ignoring activities most susceptible to waste, fraud and abuse," Burton said. He said he is considering offering a bill to amend the Results Act to require agencies to address high-risk management problems in their performance plans.

Below are tables of agencies' performance in the three areas GAO graded:

GAO Evaluations of Agencies' Fiscal 2000 Performance Plans